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ARCADIA,

A PASTORAL POEM.

ADVERTISEMENT.

HE following paftoral was written in the year 1762;

TH

but the author, finding some tolerable paffages in it, was induced to correct it afterwards, and to give it a place in this collection. He took the hint of it from an allegory of Mr. Addison in the thirty second paper of the Guardian ; which is fet down in the margin, that the reader may fee where he has copied the original, and where he has deviated from it. In this piece, as it now ftands, Menalcas, king of the fhepherds, means Theocritus, the moft ancient, and, perhaps, the best writer of paftorals; and by his two daughters, Daphne, and Hyla, must be understood the two forts of pastoral poetry, the one elegant and polished, the other

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fimple and unadorned, in both of which he excelled. Virgil, whom Pope chiefly followed, feems to have born away the palm in the higher fort; and Spenfer, whom Gay imitated with fuccefs, had equal merit in the more ruftick ftyle: these two poets, therefore, may juftly be supposed in this allegory to have inherited his kingdom of Arcadia.

ARCA DIA.

N thofe fair plains, where glitt'ring Ladon roll'd

IN

His wanton labyrinth o'er fands of gold,

Menalcas reign'd: from Pan his lineage came;

Rich were his vales, and deathless was his fame.

IMITATIONS.

Guardian. N°. 32.

In ancient times there dwelt in a pleasant vale of Arcadia a man of very ample poffeffions, named Menalcas, who, deriving his pedigree from the god Pan, kept very ftrictly up to the rules of the pastoral life, as it was in the golden age.

When

When youth impell'd him, and when love inspir'd,

The lift'ning nymphs his Dorick lays admir'd:

To hear his notes the fwains with rapture flew ;
A fofter pipe no fhepherd ever blew.

But now, opprefs'd beneath the load of age,
Belov'd, refpected, venerable, fage,

* Of heroes, demigods, and gods he fung;
His reed neglected on a poplar hung:

Yet all the rules, that young Arcadians keep,

He kept, and watch'd each morn his bleating sheep.

Two lovely daughters were his dearest care,

Both mild as May, and both as April fair:

Love, where they mov'd, each youthful breast inflam'd,
And Daphne this, and Hyla that was nam’d.

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This couplet alludes to the higher Idyllia of Theocritus, as the 'Eyxám

els IITakapaïor, the Alicxagu, and others, which are of the heroick kind.

*The

*The first was bashful as a blooming bride,

And all her mien display'd a decent pride;

Her treffes, braided in a curious knot,

Were close confin'd, and not a hair forgot;
Where many a flow'r, in mystick order plac'd,
With myrtle twin'd, her filken fillet grac'd :
Nor with lefs neatnefs was her robe difpos'd,
And ev'ry fold a pleasing art disclos'd;

Her fandals of the brightest filk were made,
And, as fhe walk'd, gave luftre to the fhade;
A graceful ease in ev'ry step was seen,

She mov❜d a fhepherdess, yet look'd a queen.
Her fifter fcorn'd to dwell in arching bow'rs,

Or deck her locks with wreaths of fading flow'rs;

IMITATIONS.

*He had a daughter, his only child, called Amaryllis. She was a virgin of a most enchanting beauty, of a moft easy and unaffected air; but, having been bred up wholly in the country, was bashful to the last degree.

O'er

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